The Final Storm (Part 3)

Coming Home

Arianna let Jaydon wrap her up in his arms, breathed in his distinctly spicy dragon smell, let his gentle warmth envelop her. As she sobbed she could hear him whisper something in her ear. It wasn’t the Vulnarian language, or any language Arianna knew for that matter. It was an ancient language, one full of soft rumblings that came from deep inside his chest and thrummed through her whole body with an alien energy. The voice, tinged with bitter sadness and yet tingling with hope, seemed to penetrate to her very soul. She felt as if he were saying, Our lives have been hard, but we will live to see a better day. And in her heart, she believed him.

              She stayed there, safe and warm, like a reluctant caterpillar in a cocoon, just listening to his rumbling song and the steady, rhythmic beating of his double dragon hearts against her as her sobbing slowly died down.

            Drake shuffled in her hair and she knew it was time to go. She slowly pulled herself off him, cringing as a string of green followed. “I just snotted all over you,” she sniffed pitifully.  

            He laughed lightly, such a beautiful sound. “It’s okay, Arianna. Are you okay?”

            “Not really,” Arianna admitted shakily as he ran a thumb down her grimy face. “Don’t tell Ralem about this, okay?”

            Jaydon’s expression was puzzled but he nodded anyway. “He wouldn’t think of you any less, Princess. Everyone needs to cry sometimes.”

            “Even the snotty, ugly kind?” Arianna wiped her nose with her sleeve with a sad chuckle.

            “I did the snotty, ugly kind the day you left,” Jaydon admitted, “And I set fire to Ralem’s favorite pair of boots. Then I cried some more.”

            Arianna gave a hint of a smile, “What did he do then?”

            “Well first he put out the fire,” Jaydon said seriously, “Then he told me off. He was mad. He never liked me crying, because inside he was crying too and he hated himself for it.”

            Arianna bit her lip before asking the inevitable, “Will he be okay?”

            One side of Jaydon’s lips pulled up in a quirky smile that made him look like a little boy, but his eyes were distant. “He will be okay.”

            She knew he was not saying something. “His hand will come back, right?”

            Jaydon’s wings wilted. “I.. I don’t know Princess.”

            Arianna nodded tightly, preferring not to say anything. Jaydon’s liquid green eyes glanced at her sympathetically as he slowly stood up as if his legs were rusty. His callused hands wrapped around hers, easing her up alongside him. “We should go,” he breathed.

            She leaned heavily on him as her hurt leg sparked with the sudden weight. “Wh-where?”

            “We should take Aidan home to be with his mother. That’s what Ralem would have wanted. Then, I will go and fight for the Barokians in the morning and you shall rest.”

            “Fight? But…”

            “By tomorrow I will surely be able to become who I really am, and Baroke will fall without my help. As much as it hurts to fight without my Rider, I must. It’s what he wanted.”

            Arianna didn’t say anything in reply but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that she would not let Jaydon go off alone, and neither would Ralem if he were conscious. But for now she was so tired… she felt like everything was swimming. She knew if she kept going for much longer she was going to pass out on the street and not get up for a long while.